Pirate Shorts

I hadn't remembered this one, but according to the signature inside, I got it at Anime Boston 2008. It's sat in the unread comics pile since then, only to be taken out and read eight years later and halfway around the planet!

Title: Pirate Shorts
Date: 2008
Publisher: Shelli Parachutes (Shelli Paroline, Foolproofart)
Writer: Shelli Parachutes
Artist: Shelli Parachutes

Really cleverly designed minicomic collection of short comic strips with a very vague pirate-theme by Shelli Parachutes (aka
Shelli Paroline).

The artwork is lovely, and the book features a fold-out section to allow for a different panel format for a boat-race take on the fable of the tortoise and hare.

There's also a quick Star Wars parody strip, as well as a battle between a crow's nest lookout and some birds.

I found the jokes to be a bit of a mixed bag for my own sense of humor, but the art style is delightful, and I love the little touches on the design elements of the book.

Rating: 6/10

Sun-Flower

Another item I picked up at Anime Boston from fellow Artists Alley participant Finni Chang.

Title: Sun-Flower
Publisher: Finni Chang
Date: 2013
Writer: Finni Chang
Artist: Finni Chang

This is a full-color sketchbook from artist Finni Chang. It opens with a 24-hour comic detailing a typical twenty-four hours in her life as a freelance artist in humorous style. From there, the book presents a range of gorgeous character illustrations with a scattering of other features.

This is mostly original characters. There is some Gaia Online work, and a three-page Pokemon fan comic, but the focus is on original characters, and there are some fascinating ones. Finni does awesome costume illustration, and her use of color is spectacular.

She also includes some sketch work with accompanying text to give some insights into her technique. For the most part, though, the art speaks for itself.

Rating: 8.5/10

My Escape

I picked up a surprising amount of comics at the National Conference on Science Education this past week, but I am still also doing reviews of some of the books I brought home from Anime Boston. This one comes from a person I've had the pleasure of working with on some of my own comics.

Title: My Escape
Publisher: Missy Pena
Writer: Missy Pena
Artist: Missy Pena

Artist Missy Pena describes this 40-page full-color sketchbook as "a collection of sketches done in my free time, whenever I felt like I needed an escape from the real world." My Escape is a full color journey told in characters, setting, fashion, and magic.

In between the artwork, Missy give short insights into her techniques, her influences, roleplaying games, and fan art.The artwork features original characters with a bit of fanart from Legend of Korra and Assassin's Creed.

This is a beautiful book, and a great celebration of fantasy as a genre, and of the look and style of the fantastical.

Rating: 8.5/10

Lost Nova: Ghillies And Bastards

A traditional-format comic I picked up at Anime Boston.

Title: Lost Nova: Ghillies And Bastards
Publisher: Lost Nova
Writer: Stephanie B.
Artist: Stephanie B.

This is the second volume of Lost Nova, collecting the webcomic of the same name.

Pyrena heads to sea with Vera, but very quickly comes to doubt her decision to run away from home, especially as the crew of the ship that will be her new home begin to make their first impressions.

Once again, I really enjoyed this story, particularly for the pacing and the character development. Pyrena's moments of doubt and panic ring true, and the crew of the Odalisque are quirky and fun. Pyrena has great expressions and reactions to what she sees and experiences.

This is still in the early stages plot-wise, but the potential is there for it to be a wonderful nautical-flavored epic.

Rating: 8/10

Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 3

I'm reviewing live from Anime Boston 2014! Sitting here at my table in Artists Alley (Table #43 if you're at the con! Come up and check out our comics!), while I review the first of several items I've purchased here at the con.

Title: Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 3
Date: 2011
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley
Artist: Alan Evans, Lora Innes
Colorist: Dustin Yee, Aaron Daly
Cover: Lora Innes
Back Cover: Sarah Ellerton

This is the third trade paperback collection from the Rival Angels webcomic, which tells the stories of four women trying to make names for themselves in a WWE-style womens pro wrestling league.

The focus of this volume is on the frie
ndship between babyface rookie Sabrina Mancini and rookie heel Sun "Lil Dragon" Wong. When Sun joins heel faction Damage Inc., their friendship gets strained to the breaking point.

In the ring, the "main event" of this volume is Sabrina's semi-final match in the ongoing Television Championship tournament and the continuation of Sabrina's feud with Chloe DeSade's Hell's Belles group.

As with the first two volumes, writer/artist Alan Evans's love and knowledge of pro wrestling shines through with tons of familiar moves, classic wrestling tropes, and a good sense of match pacing and booking. I also enjoyed the geeky references and one-liners in the dialogue.

This volume also does a lot of work expanding the subplots happening both in the ring and outside. There is a lot going on here, and it sets up plenty of future twists and turns.

Rating: 8/10

Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 2

Title: Rival Angels: Rookie Year Volume 2
Date: 2010
Publisher: Rival Angels
Writer: Alan Evans, Justin Riley, Dan Head
Artist: Alan Evans, Dan Head
Colorist: Dustin Yee, Jessica Hunsberger, Marcia da Piedade Nunes Patricio


Trade paperback compilation of the Rival Angels webcomic. I picked up the first volume last summer at Otakon, and bought this one when I ran into creator Alan Evans at Anime Boston 2013.

This is a pro wrestling comic, telling the story of fur rookie wrestlers in their first year in the "big league" of the Rival Angels federation. Kayfabe story. All of the in-ring action is considered real.

In the previous review I mentioned that Alan Evans knows his wrestling. The action is familiar enough to be authentic and original enough to stay interesting. There were some in-ring moments that would look awesome in an actual wrestling match (the "tsunami"!).

What I especially liked in this volume, though, was the out-of-ring character development, especially the relationship between "Ultragirl" Sabrina Mancini and "Lil Dragon" Sun Wong. They have some great scenes just developing their friendship, even as events are happening that will threaten the friendship down the road.

The story had good, complex backstage intrigue happening, and it also used flashbacks to give more insight into the backgrounds of some of the lead characters, including what amounted to a complete origin story for Sun.

This volume showed a lot more character depth, and the out-of-ring storylines moved away from the reality-TV flavor that characterized the first volume.

I'm a longtime wrestling fan. I bought this volume because it was a good story about wrestling. I'll be buying the next volume just because it's a good story.

Rating: 8/10

The Bards Comic Relaunched #1

Nikki O'Shea was one of the first artists I ran into at Anime Boston's artists alley this year, and I picked up this compilation of her webcomic.


Title: The Bards Comic Relaunched
Issue: #1
Date: 2010
Publisher: Dragon Press Graphics
Writer: Nikki O'Shea
Artist: Nikki O'Shea

Standard comic format collection of the Bards Comic webcomic. This collection introduces Jack and Samantha, two new members of the Bards.

This issue starts off with a series of strips about something I could definitely relate to: the difficulties of creative work done in the presence of toddlers and cats. This was some good, funny, geeky, and true-to-life material.

From there, it was time to put the band back together, or rather, to recruit some new members of the Bards before the intrepid musicians (and artist!) set out on their latest adventure.

As you have probably figured out from past reviews, I'm a sucker for a good geeky autobiographical comic, so I was having a lot of fun reading this just because of the familiarity of the different personality-types who appeared in the story.

The jokes were good, and the plot looks like it has potential, although a lot of the second half of this issue was setup and introductions. The comic suffers a bit in its transfer to print in terms of layout and small font sizes, but that is partly the result of trying to get a decent number of comic strips (41!) into one issue.

Overall, this was entertaining and fun with lots of good nerdy references.

Rating: 7.5/10

Chaotic Kiss Book Three

Another Anime Boston purchase.

Title: Chaotic Kiss
Issue: Book Three
Date: 2011
Publisher: MKT Productions
Writer: Michelle Pinard
Artist: Michelle Pinard

This holiday-themed volume of Michelle Pinard's transgendered geeky romance starts out with a departure from the Boston-based nerdy fun of the previous issues. Syd is heading home for Thanksgiving to face a family who has never come to terms with her gender identity. This is a really emotional scene, and definitely the most intense and dramatic so far in this series.

When they get back to Boston, Syd and Mariko find themselves in the midst of the holiday season, complete with a cute series of tributes to favorite holiday tropes. Meanwhile, Yujiko's beginning relationship with Noah continues to grow and Lander is trying to work up to courage to confess his feelings for Syd.

There is the maid cafe, and video game action, of course, and some fun local flavor. I enjoyed seeing a glimpse of First Night Boston.

There is a lot of silliness in this volume, but my favorite moments were among the more serious: The confrontation between Syd and her father, and a really tender scene involving Yujiko and Noah.

Rating: 7.5/10

Drifting Doom

This is the first of several reviews of books I purchased at Anime Boston 2012. I had a great time representing Dandelion Studios in artists alley, but I've been in full con-recovery mode for the last few days, which is why reviews have gone neglected. Without further ado, on to the Anime Boston finds!

Title: Drifting Doom
Date: 2010
Publisher: Emily Wing
Writer: Emily Wing
Artist: Emily Wing

Eight-page wordless minicomic.

A whale calf is on a collision course with a deadly hazard. This is a simple vignette, told elegantly and poignantly with only Emily Wing's pen-and-ink illustrations to convey the emotion of the scene.

Minimalist and beautiful.

Rating: 8/10

Sky Pirates of Valendor Series 2 #2

My last review from Anime Boston. Here is Sue Soares of Jolly Rogue Studios with the display of both issues of Sky Pirates of Valendor Series 2.

Title: Sky Pirates of Valendor Series 2
Issue: #2
Date: 2011
Publisher: Jolly Rogue Studios
Writer: Everett Soares
Penciler: Brian Brinlee
Inker: Alex Rivera
Tones: Jet Amago
Letterer: Steve Kuster
Editor: Amy Haley, Elizabeth Tramonti
Art Direction: Keith J Murphey

Half-elven pirate captain Tobin Manheim gets invited to high tea, and the event turns into a family reunion of sorts. Of course family reunions can be problematic when old suspicions rear their ugly heads, and they become even more problematic when one a family member is a powerful earth-mage.

The family drama takes center stage, but there is plenty of political intrigue in the background as Captain Manheim decides that he can split his crew to take on two missions at once for double the money.

A few of the time-cuts in the earlier scenes seemed unnecessary, but once the action focused on the main characters and the story got rolling, this moved along at a nice pace with plenty of action and some good backstory development.

The artwork on the fight scenes was excellent, with some fun and creative angles and panel layouts.

Rating 8/10

Higher Ground

My second review from Anime Boston is Higher Ground pictured here with creator Shelli Paroline.

Title: Higher Ground
Date: 2008
Publisher: Foolproofart
Writer: Shelli Paroline
Artist: Shelli Paroline

Very cute quarter-sized minicomic. It's b/w but shaded in yellow hues.

The story is a play on the Sisyphus myth set during the age of dinosaurs, and it features an egg-eating dino who believes he's acquired the best treasure he can imagine. He just needs to roll it up a very high hill that may not be a hill at all.

Amusing story with adorable art and some funny dialogue.

Rating: 8/10

Bisclavret

My first live review from Anime Boston. Kel McDonald and the Sorcery 101 crew was across the aisle from me in Artists Alley. I picked up her minicomic, Bisclavret.

Title: Bisclavret
Publisher: Sorcery 101
Story: Marie De France
Artist: Kel McDonald

Half-sized minicomic adaptation of a French werewolf legend.

This was a really interesting take on the werewolf mythology with some great plot twists. A lady wonders where her lord disappears to when he goes away into the forest, and he reluctantly lets her in on his dark secret. The characters came off as complex and real, and the story came to a satisfying conclusion.

Kel McDonald's art style is clear and easy to follow, and she handles detailed action scenes with apparent ease. Very entertaining book.

Rating: 8.5/10